ATDDTA (3): Control issues, Chums, They

[Joseph T]

First i want to say that I agree that Monte's reading is hard to  
argue against , particularly that the beautiful final version of the  
Chum's  and the flying city is pretty dreamy. I don't think the  
family picnic at the end of VL is at all the same degree of fantasy.   
I've personally been to events that looked  a lot like that, and some  
of them were in  the Arcata /Trinidad/ Eureka Area of Northern Ca  
where the story takes place.  I also agree with robinlandseal that  
Pynchon seems to pop out of the postmodern box  and sing with the  
wobblies or sit in holy reverence at a christmas mass.

  I like the Big Rock Candy Mountain reference I would argue that  
there are  larger and somewhat weightier mythic dreams that resonate  
with the Chums world at the end of ATD. The 2 which seem most  
applicable to me are fundamentally the same. One Is Shambalah as  
imaged  floating in the astral plane by Golden Dawner types, and the  
other is the New Jerusalem of The final NT book," I saw the holy  
city, adorned as a bride...coming down out of heaven..." .  One can  
find variations on the Jerusalem theme in  the "prophets" Ezekiel,  
Isaiah and others. The Irish have Tir Na Nog .and of course there are  
many others..

The point is that the look of a better future for a given culture  
keeps changing depending on the qualities of the shared  culture as  
actually experienced. Maybe Pynchon has built this image of the  
flying city  that corresponds to some of our largest mythic dreams to  
suggest that the narratives we receive are an interpretation . So  
they  are responsive to reinterpretation  and as much a scientific  
and metaphysical question mark  as anything.

Which brings me to Webb Traverse,  Interface, Mediator . His death is  
the Crucifixion story revisited . His resurrection is his 4 children  
corresponding to the 4 directions of the cross/compass. His religion  
of anarchy ( which I take as all active opposition to heierarchical  
power structures)is a major theme of the book. This  clearly and  
highly articulated mythic structure might be interpreted in many  
directions. What follows is one.

Some people believe Jesus was not trying to start a religion so much  
as a kind of  anarchistic / anti authoritarian community where God  
was to be found freely in the now, to be seen in the processes of the  
natural world, and without the aid of priests. He seemed to encourage  
people to pursue peace and justice fearlessly  both within the  
community and in interaction with the larger society,  and seemed  to  
say that any decent society would measure its spirituality by how it  
treated its weakest members. He also appeared capable of transmitting  
a kind of magical healing force and thus had tremendous charismatic  
appeal. This is pretty close to what John Crossan came up with in his  
search for the historical Jesus.  One might also think of this as the  
awake self.

If this founder/ teacher/ enlightenment  figure were  originally  
interpreted as  the kind of morally humane anarchist  described by   
John Crossan or others, the "church" would look real different  
today.  Perhaps it would have lost any religious staying power, but  
maybe it would be the soul of a kind of counterforce to the  
misdirection of History. Or a silly pipedream. So If the floating  
city of 1085 is not "at last ... the real unbearble Jerusalem" (251)  
of Miles' Markan vision, it seems to me to be pointing in that  
direction.  You know , where there ain't no railroad bulls.

On Feb 19, 2007, at 9:38 AM, Monte Davis wrote:

>> I would say that by the end of the novel, the Chums are essentially
>> Anarchists, that the values expoused on the final pages of AtD are
>> the core values of Anarchy...
>
> "The values espoused" ... Here's where my heart always wants to go  
> with you,
> and my head always says "wait a minute."
>
> I agree it's very significant that AtD ends with that portrayal of  
> the Chums
> in a blissful, ongoing family setting, on a trajectory to grace.  
> But it's
> equally significant that that setting is very clearly Neverland,
> cloud-cuckoo-land, the Big Rock Candy Mountain, another Yz-les- 
> Bains that's
> not on any map: in other words, explicitly *not* the damned world  
> below, the
> one we're in when we close the book.
>
> Ditto for the Traverse family picnic at the end of VL, ditto for  
> the boys'
> American dreams at the end of M&D, ditto for the Counterforce that  
> fades out
> into static.
>
> So if by "espoused" you mean "values that AtD holds out as offering  
> personal
> and familial happiness," I agree. But to the extent you mean  
> "values that
> AtD holds out as promising a better world"... I have serious doubts. I
> believe AtD and the whole TRP oeuvre are better for their never- 
> resolved
> tension between:
>
> These values bring out the best in us as individuals
>
> and
>
> These values are hard -- maybe impossible -- to embody in political  
> action,
> to put to work in history
>